A Study of Mother Tongue Interference in the English Pronunciation of Pothohari Speakers

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the interference of mother tongue in the English pronunciation of Pothohari speakers. The distinctive features of English pronunciation of Pakistani Pothohari speakers are analyzed keeping focus on selected vowels, diphthongs and /r/ sound. A set of nine phonemes: diphthongs ɪə,ɑɪ,eɪ, əʊ, ɔɪ, vowels ɒ, ɜː, æ and /r/ phoneme are focused. The study has foregrounded, in distinctive features, theory for theoretical considerations. Twenty native Pothohari speakers participated in the study. A list of eighteen sentences with the target sounds is used for data collection purpose. The utterances of sample participants are recorded and analyzed to realizd the objectives of the study. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are utilized to analyze the recorded data. Received Pronunciation (RP) is used as a reference tool to determine the differences. The findings identified certain distinctive features in English pronunciation of the Pothohari speakers marked by the influence of the mother tongue.

Keywords

• distinctive features
• English language
• interference
• Pothohari language
• pronunciation